Pumpkin Mask Origins
by Koplak from the Equator
Summary: Who is Tobi? Where is he came from? HOW does he exist? What ties he has with the infamous Madara Uchiha? Well...the Uchiha himself holds the answer and he's sharing it with us.


**Pumpkin Mask Origins**

**[1] The Rousing SMACK! [1]**

"Black Spot! Uchiha! Black Spot! Uchiha!" the children danced and sang mockingly around him. This was wrong; he was the son of the favorable, lovable, and respectable Magusa Uchiha, yet why do they still mocking him around? Most of all, what's wrong with his name?

"Hey, Madara, are you a dog or something? What kind of name is that? Your mommy saw a pimple when she gives birth to you?" an older kid, approximately eleven years old, poked Madara on the head. The black-haired seven-year-old boy remained quiet.

"Ew, gross! Could it be a very big zit?" another kid snorted. The other kids laughed along with him. Madara was biting his tongue.

"Your mommy must be a weird person! Just look at the way she named you! And then she left you here with your daddy. Your mommy must've hates you so much she _dumped_ you." the first kid continued mocking. Now he was going way too far; but Madara remained quiet though he could feel the blood rushing to his head madly.

"Yeah. She dumped you and never come back. She must be…what do they call it again?" a smaller kid added, but since he lacked vocabulary, he often asked the older ones.

"It's _divorced_, you moron!" the first kid snapped. "Oh yeah! Could it be? Because your mommy and daddy divorced, she dumped you here."

Now Madara had had it. It was time to argue back; argue to save his mother's pride. "My mother lives in a faraway place! I can't live there!" Madara retorted. The smaller boys looked kind of startled at his sudden outburst.

"Oh, really? Where is it, then? You know it?" the first kid asked mockingly.

"Of course I know where she is! She's in…" Madara trailed off and the kids laughed scornfully at him.

"You have such a big mouth!"

"It's true! I know where she is! I just…shouldn't speak of it." Madara lowered his head, curling his fists but had no intention to fight. "And my mother loves me. She always does. She's a kind woman. You guys just don't know about her."

"Right…. And she dumped you with your daddy. You know what that means? Your mommy's a _whore…_" the first kid hissed the unmannered word.

The kid overdid his mockery, causing Madara's eyes to flash in red and his unintended fist to swing at full force right to the kid's face. He pounced at the bigger boy and his fists mercilessly damaged the kid's face. Screw the manners; screw attitude; screw the dignity; screw pride; screw everything! "NO ONE CAN SAY THAT ABOUT MY MOTHER!" Madara roared fiercely. He changed one-hundred-eighty degrees from introverted unsocial child into a potential bone-crusher. His changes caused the other children to freeze on their footings and stared frightfully at the bloody, one-sided child fight. The kid Madara tortured was wailing, crying, and screaming apologies but to no avail. It was his own fault, after all.

Much to the boy's relief, Madara's hitting ceased although it was not by Madara's will. Two Uchiha jonins stopped the furious boy from killing unnecessarily in such young age. One of the jonin helped the injured kid to go to the hospital in order for his wounds to be fixed. The other one was still restraining Madara from his feral adrenaline rush.

"Madara-sama! Stop! You don't have to do this! You _shouldn't _do this! What does that kid deserve to get your punch?!" the jonin heatedly holding Madara down.

Through gritted teeth and jerked tear, Madara wrathfully answered, "He's disgraced my mother! He gives my mother a bad name! He called her a _whore_!" The jonin's eyes bulged and for a moment there, he almost released Madara's skinny arms. "No one can say that about my mother!"

"That's enough, Madara-sama!" the jonin forcefully made Madara turned to face him, only to found himself staring eye-to-eye with Madara's flashing red orbs. The Sharingan…

With much force, the jonin embraced Madara, calming him down from his fury. It took Madara a painful lot of effort, but he managed to calm down, thus the disappearance of his Sharingan. Madara squirmed out of the jonin's arms and walked the opposite way to the kid he injured. "Tezuka-san, I'm going to the river. Do _not_ follow me. I want to be alone."

"Of course, Madara-sama." the jonin named Tezuka respectfully nodded at his master's son. After a while, he ushered the other kids to go home and kindly told them not to tell their parents about what happened and also gave them a little lesson of being careful with their words.

The small, shallow river was the only place where Madara could calm down his heart. The river effectively washed his feelings away with its stream, just like how it cleaned the blood stain on his hands. He washed his face too since he was feeling so hot after all those shouting and growling. He sat at the riverbed, looking straight down at the flowing liquid that smoothly touched his feet. The flowing water wasn't just the river; there were ones on his face too.

The painful words still haunted little Madara's fragile mind and he hated the last particular word hissed out at him. No…his mother was not and will never be a whore. That was just the kid's bragging! Or was it…?

Madara brusquely shook his head, muttering, "She's not a whore. She's not a whore." repetitively as if the sentence were magic words that could calm his mind. He gripped his thick black hair and tears dropped to the river like rain. "No, she's not." he persisted. "She's a good woman, I know it! I know her better than anyone in the world! No one can mock her. No one! Not even myself!"

"It's OK. They'll be sorry for saying that kind of thing to you." a boy's voice, much softer than Madara's, interrupted Madara's solitary and emotional meditation. Madara whipped his head towards the source of the voice—which was just right beside him. The boy smiled at him, "Hi."

Madara was stunned. Not only this boy sat beside him uninvited, but his face was strangely identical with his. Identical it may be, but Madara could still discern some differences he had with him. This boy's face was slightly more soft-curved compared to Madara's. Aside that, the boy's had a smile so bright that Madara thought he wouldn't be able to copy.

Tentatively, Madara asked, "Who…who are you?"

The boy grinned and held his hand out. "I'm Tobi! Nice to meet you!"

Madara just stared at Tobi's hand, as if the harmless small hand was a grapple stick smothered with caterpillars. Tobi tilted his head to the side and re-stretched his hand to Madara who kept staring at his hand oddly.

"What is it? Don't you know how to shake hands?" Tobi asked, inching his face closer to Madara.

"Huh? Oh, uh, yeah! Of course I know how to shake hands!" Madara gripped Tobi's hand and the cheery boy shook it with a wide grin. The grin scraped the darkness inside Madara; the once sad boy was now smiling at his new friend. "I'm Madara. Madara Uchiha."

"Great! We're going to be the best of friends!" Tobi chirped.

* * *

Meticulously, the last swirl was carved upon the wooden piece of mask. Madara blew excess wood from his new piece of artwork. He twirled it around his hand, scrutinizing it, before nodding approvingly and began to sand the mask so its surface smoothened. While sanding, he lowly sang, _"__Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time__. __On a live wire right up off the street__. __You and I should meet__. __Junebug skipping like a stone__."_ and resumed the whole song whistling. It unfortunately had to be disrupted by an unsought _KABOOM!!!_

"WHOOOO!!! FIREWORKS!!!" a man shouted vigorously. Madara shook his head exasperatedly and continued sanding. He remembered the voice belonged to a young man named Deidara. He may have the knowledge of destruction, but he just hadn't the logic on when to use the knowledge.

"Get back here!!" Sasori's voice scolded him heatedly.

"No way! I'm enjoying my role as Johnny Storm! You, Pinocchio, you should've been a good boy and dance around!"

"Don't call me Pinocchio just because I dressed up as him! Now get back inside before I have to attach my strings unto you!!!"

Madara chuckled coolly, "Idiots…" he mumbled. "The Halloween costume party looks fun, though…" he added; there was a small twang of jealousy inside of him.

A black thing crawled towards his leg and with the same craft knife he used to carve the mask, he eliminated the pest. It was one big black ugly and filthy rat that nearly gnawed off his flesh. He may not be able to get hurt, but Madara still didn't like to see pests around Zetsu's pumpkin farm. Not that he cared about the pumpkin or Zetsu…

The mask was ultimately smooth inside out. Madara smirked in satisfaction. _I'm not a bad artist after all_, he thought proudly. "Now all I need is to buy a strap to attach this thing to my face. And next, I'll be ready to go launch my ultimate 'up-close and personal project'!" Madara punched the air with a little carried away. He lowered his arm down, looking around, hoping nobody heard him or saw him, and cleared his throat. He stood, stretching his back, "Ah, I could always use some shopping at this time of the day. I also need a little bubbly punch…" And the now one century old Madara strolled off to the rainy atmosphere of Amegakure.

* * *

It seemed like he came too early as neither Pein nor Konan was waiting on the top of their Akatsuki HQ tower. Madara sighed and headed to the three seats available in the circular room. He lowered himself and soon he found himself sinking in the bean bag that was supposed to act as a chair. "Gah! Goddammit! Oof!" After a long struggle, Madara finally set himself sitting almost normally on the bean bag. He rescued his new artwork from getting sat on by his rear.

"You always have problems with the seat." Pein's voice broke the silence. He sat on Madara's right and, much to Madara's envy, the bean bag didn't swallow Pein like it swallowed him.

"Make mine from wattle so that I don't have to suffer eternal suffocation." Madara muttered resentfully.

"I'll take a note of that." Pein solemnly nodded.

"Where's Konan?" Madara asked.

"Taking a bath."

"For how long exactly?" Madara rested his chin on his hand, yawning in boredom already.

"Hmm…maybe twenty minutes."

"Maybe…"

Twenty nine minutes later, after lethargically yawning and waiting, Madara and Pein finally could see Konan entering the meeting room. While they were waiting, Zetsu appeared but they made no attempt in adding colors and sounds to the situation. Madara groaned in relief as Konan sat on her bean bag seat—also not ending up swallowed like Madara.

"What?" Konan asked when she saw Madara's deep scowling face. "Can we start already?"

"Good idea." Madara hissed. "I've been _dying_ to explain about my brilliant little side-project." Madara said, slipping a little sarcasm in his tone, yet it wasn't all sarcastic.

"Then you may precede, Madara." Pein nodded at the older Uchiha.

"It feels like I need to jump to the fieldwork myself now that the need of collecting the Bijuu is increasing. Therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary self-revealing, I have prepared a disguise." Madara showed his orange mask artwork. He smirked, seeing Pein's raised eyebrow.

"You gonna be a Halloween clown?" the black side of Zetsu asked skeptically. Meanwhile, the white side giggled.

"Well, I have to make myself unsuspicious and I think that a goofy character might do the trick. The Akatsuki nor any other people won't ever think behind this mask is the immortal Madara Uchiha. The plan is full-proof!" Madara smirked triumphantly.

"How about Itachi? He knows you for quite a long time. He might easily detect you." Konan interjected.

"I'm not worry about Itachi. He'll find a hard time to digest that I can act goofy." Madara firmly strapped the orange mask around and suddenly, Pein, Konan and Zetsu saw a different person, sitting on the bean bag. "How do I look?"

"Excuse me." Black Zetsu cleared his throat before… "HAHAHAHA!!! OMAHGOD, THAT'S THE UGLIEST DISGUISE I'VE EVER SEEN!!!" he rolled on the floor, laughing madly along with his White side. Konan giggled and Pein's face was covered with his hands and his back was shaking vehemently.

Although irritated, Madara had to admit his disguise worked like magic. Fighting off the severe twitching, Madara said, "You ain't see the last of me."

"Sure…" Zetsu snorted.

"OK, enough! I get the picture already…." Madara sighed. "Anyway, since I can't be a member all of a sudden, I'll be the apprentice of…" Madara sighed again; the other three (or four) people waited eagerly. "…Zetsu."

"No way!" Black Zetsu exclaimed. "You gotta be shitting me!"

"I don't think so…" White Zetsu disagreed. "If you're our apprentice, then that means we have to act as if you're our real apprentice, right?"

"Just don't make it suspicious."

"Then that means we can hit you if you mess up, right?!" Black Zetsu asked enthusiastically.

Madara started to hate himself by now. Still severely twitching, he nodded. "Like I say, make it unsusp—OW!! Not now, OK?!" he snapped at Zetsu who decided to give the hit a tryout.

"Sorry. Can't resist." Black Zetsu giggled, "This is more exciting than I thought!"

"Good thing there's a positive review. Now…let's get the party started, shall we?"

* * *

"_This_ is Zetsu's apprentice?!" Deidara exclaimed, his eyes were observing the orange mask with disbelief and shock at the same time. "Come on, Leader, he doesn't even look like a criminal, let alone S-rank! He's—he's—he's just a stupid overgrown ten-year-old! I mean, look at the mask! Orange?!"

_Orange is my favorite color!_ Madara snapped inside his inner mind. He was actually half-smiling inside the mask. In reality, he wanted to burn the blonde with Amaterasu, but the aiming of his side-project kept reminding him that he must endure all of Deidara's fist-raising comments. Somewhere in his memory cells, Madara suddenly remembered what Deidara disliked the most and he was going to use that against him.

"Hello, Deidara-senpai! Senpai is so cute! Tobi wants to give Senpai a BIG hug!!!" Then there goes the BIG hug. Undeniably, Deidara was allergic to it and started squirming.

"Get off of me! Don't hug me, you irritating pest you!" Deidara shoved the disguising Madara roughly and cowered behind Sasori.

The puppeteer rolled his eyes exhaustedly and turned to the orange masked man/boy. "So…your name's Tobi?" Sasori asked with those bored eyes of his.

"Yep! Tobi's name's Tobi! Nice to meet 'cha!" the façade of Madara called Tobi chirped. Far behind Sasori, a long black haired young man was twitching rigorously upon seeing the goofy and lovey-dovey character of Tobi.

Tobi skipped towards Itachi who squeaked somewhat in intimidation. Both of Zetsu's sides' cheeks were puffing as they struggling not to laugh or even giggle. Inside the mask, Madara sneered devilishly and, in order to tease Itachi around, he held both of his hands in a overly friendly handshakes. "This must be Itachi-senpai! Zetsu-senpai told Tobi so many things about Itachi-senpai! It's a pleasure to meet you, Itachi-senpai! Tobi is looking forward to work with Senpai!"

At which point, Zetsu purposely banged their head to the wall. It was just…so…tickling…hilarious…

Itachi's legs were about to given up but as a warrior, he struggled to keep them up. Yet…the reality of Madara acting like _that_ scarred his mind. Tobi drew his mask closer to Itachi who shivered vehemently. "I'll be waiting for you outside, boy…" Madara's true voice whispered to his ear. For a moment there, Itachi was glad to hear his real voice, but the sickeningly bright orange mask made him suffer nausea.

As told, Itachi went outside and Zetsu and Madara (now unmasked) were waiting for him. Itachi's nostrils flared with fury. He stomped towards Madara and roared, "What the hell was that, Madara?! Why—how—why do you act like that?! Are you playing some trick on us, huh?!" Never had Itachi roared like this—and he was aware of that.

"It's classified, boy. Just enjoy my little role play." Madara answered lazily.

"Yeah, but—but…a character like THAT? Are you serious? I don't even know you can act!"

"All ninjas must can act, sunshine." Then he blinked. Itachi blinked too. "Did I just say 'sunshine'?"

"Hell yeah, you did."

"Holy. Flerking. Shnit. ZETSU! Hit me now!" Madara bawled frantically.

"Yo, Joe!" both sides exclaimed before Black side's hand pounded Madara's face. It was a hard and a heartfelt punch but Madara remained unscathed.

"Ugh…thanks. My god…what have I become? Right, young man, time to go. Chop, chop! There's nothing else to say." Madara shooed Itachi by pushing him away. Itachi fought back. Apparently, his business wasn't yet finished.

"Nothing else? _Nothing else?_ I demand explanations, Madara! What's with the new façade?! I want to know!" Itachi argued.

"Ugh, it's not like you to put your hands in other people's stuff! What, you have some kind of fanboy-ism on me?"

"What? No! OK…fine! I'll leave you alone! But don't expect to talk to you anymore. We're done! Finito!" Itachi gruffly walked back to the base. Madara behind him just chuckled darkly.

The older of the Uchiha smirked to Zetsu, "I told you he won't be a problem."

"I can see that. I have no idea Itachi could be easily defeated with simple arguments like that." White Zetsu remarked as he and his counterpart body picked up their feet to a long journey. Madara, wearing his mask back, followed the floral bipolar. "Anyway…aren't you concerned that someone else could easily found out that Tobi is you?"

"Nope. No one else in this world knows that Madara Uchiha is still alive—except you, Pein, Konan, and Itachi."

"You sure have no worries, huh?" Black Zetsu asked.

"What—me worry?"

"Boy, you also have a serious fanaticism over MAD magazine…"

They had walked for hours and over miles away from the main Akatsuki HQ. At which point, Zetsu's nose sniffed the air. Suddenly the two-in-one compact became stealthy and feral. The black side pulled his tongue out and licked his upper lip. Madara arched his eyebrows in confusion and notion.

"What is it?" Madara asked. He was ready to accept both serious and ridiculous answers.

"Dead raw meat." White Zetsu answered, remaining calm.

"We'll be back." Black Zetsu muttered before he and his lighter side dashed toward the source of smell.

"Eh? Dude, wait!" Madara tried to follow up but was stopped abruptly when a tree branch, which Zetsu bent so he could move forward, flung back to its position and smacked Madara precisely on his face (the hardest and the most painful being on the nose) and knocked him backwards. His visions started to distort and darkened. As his excruciated groan ceased, so did his consciousness. Leaving him seeing…orange…

* * *

**Yay, I can't believe I done this! For those of you who haven't read all of my stories, this story would mean like a normal story that has no ties whatsoever. For those who have, this is the prequel of all my Akatsuki stories—especially **_**'I Spy'**_**. The idea just came recently and the reason I wanted to write this is because I missed writing Madara and Tobi in the same body as double personalities and, in case of the flashback, imaginary friends. For those who have followed ever since the beginning, you might or might not notice a little plot twist.**

**I would really love you if you review! So please! Seriously…**


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